THE NEW OPHTHALMOLOGY 433 



other functions the same kind of work is now demanded as be- 

 fore. The eye, however, was brought into function to use in distant 

 vision, and if for near, for but an instant. Osier says that dyspep- 

 sia is the besetting malady of this country, due to improper diet, 

 etc., although modern food is many times more certain in amount 

 and good in quality than ever before. It is certain that stomach- 

 al and nutritional diseases seem to have recently increased inor- 

 dinately. What is the cause of this contradiction? One, surely, is 

 eye-strain, which is extremely prone to upset the digestive function. 

 See several thousand cases of nausea, "dyspepsia," loss of appe- 

 tite, constipation, etc., relieved at once by glasses; see the disease 

 return at once when the glasses are broken, a lens reversed in 

 a frame, or when the refraction changes, and one recognizes the 

 fact of the interrelation. 



Allied to this class of cases are those in which the keen ophthal- 

 mologist detects more than hints that renal affections, hepatic ones 

 surely, including gall-bladder diseases, may possibly be set up or 

 aggravated by severe reflexes from the eyes to the secretory and 

 eliminative organs. Some day it will be established that eye-strain is 

 a large factor in the production of diseases of the kidney. 



One of the more Subtle but still easily recognizable methods in 

 which eye-strain works perniciously is by a slow and general denutri- 

 tion and reduction of mental and physical vitality whereby the 

 resisting powers of the system are reduced to such a degree that it 

 becomes the easy prey of infections and of general and terminal 

 diseases. This makes eye-strain a factor in the tuberculosis and 

 pneumonia crusade. The life-study of patients and their diseases 

 the biographic clinic will make such a connection more often mani- 

 fest. The sad story of the life of John Addington Symonds is in this 

 way suggestive. 



The age-long superstition, whereby almost all the diseases of 

 women were traced to the sexual organs and functions, 1 is fast giving 

 way to a new view more in correspondence with facts. That puberty 

 and menstruation should inaugurate a host of terrible evils, and the 

 menopause another legion, is at the least contradictory. The 

 proper name for the cause of many supposed disorders of meno- 

 phania and puberty is study with astigmatic eyes; that for supposed 

 menopausal woes, is presbyopia. In a large number of instances 

 offrOaX/jios may replace ixrrfpa as the organ primarily at fault. The 

 oculist and gynecologist should be good friends. The connection 

 between eye and sexualism is known of old, and is a deep and pro- 

 found one. Love of any and all kinds dilates the pupil, the designa- 

 tion of the grand sympathetic system 'itself arising from the fact. 



1 A sad error that much mars the large sanity and lessens the benefits of Dr. 

 G. Stanley Hall's great book. 



